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Obama administration unveils strategy against HIV/AIDS

In the global struggle against gender based violence and HIV/AIDS, the two are inextricably intertwined as pressing human rights and public health issues that cross race, class, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, age, and ability/disability. Sexual violence increases a victim’s risk of contracting sexually transmitted infections, including HIV. Today, the Obama administration unveiled the national strategy to combat HIV/AIDS which includes:

“Broad goals as well as dozens of directives for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and other federal agencies. Those steps include developing standards to evaluate care, investigating community programs to see whether they’re effective and simplifying grant applications.

The Bureau of Prisons would expand HIV screening of inmates, and the Justice Department would fast-track investigations of discrimination involving those with HIV.”

One notable area of concern is that no additional federal funding has been allotted to support the National Strategy.

How, if at all, does your campus support efforts in making the link between sexual violence and HIV/AIDS, organizationally, campus-wide and with community partners? When engaging in discussions surrounding the stigma and prejudice survivors of sexual violence experience, does HIV/AIDS ever come up as another layer of a public health concern? How do your health and education partners integrate sexual violence and HIV/AIDS in prevention/education programming?

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Livia Rojas, MSSW, is the Training and Resource Coordinator in the Campus Program at the California Coalition Against Sexual Assault (CALCASA) where she provides training and technical assistance to recipients of the Department of Justice (DOJ), Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) Grant to Reduce Domestic Violence, Dating Violence, Sexual Assault and Stalking on college and university campuses across the United States and territories. Livia has eleven years of working to advance human rights and student organizing through practice and research.